These are all interesting interim solutions to make marginal cuts in fuel use.

The problem is, marginal changes are not going to be enough if there are severe shortages (like from a 5% cut in fuel supplies annually).

The only thing that can deliver sharp, immediate, and cost effective cuts to transport energy use is to massively expand the use of IT.

Here are some ideas:

- Mandate the nationwide installation of broadband. If you have any utility service like electricity, you get broadband to your home --- bundled in whether you like it or not or use it.

- Move virtually every possible activity "on line", from postal service delivered bills, to banking, to ordering goods and services, and delivering as much as possible services via the web, both public and private.

Then, for schools in the US:

- sharply change / curtain the 5 day a week school routine that require massive movements of people daily.

For example, dump the politically motivated programs like bussing of students in the US.

- replace centralized schools with satellites that uses existing public or quasi-public buildings (like church basements in neighborhoods so that for a part of the 5 day school week, students can walk / bicycle / golf cart / or whatever their way to a true neighborhood school (supplemented with extremely good broadband service to teachers).

- the conventional schoolhouse will still be used, but only for part of the week (maybe 3 days a week for one week, and 2 days the next), so students can still meet / have a central school.

- ultimately, the goal is to create schools where the commute is minimized and doable by non-petroleum fuel burning vehicles.

Killing off the American school system and replace it with a post industrial model based on IT would cut residential demand for fuel by probably at least 10%.

For Work:

- work can only be redesigned slowly except for those professions and jobs that can work at home.

- to the extent possible, these jobs need to be converted to petroleum commute free (or nearly) as much and as fast as possible, while still giving the workplace advantages like being able to interact with people, and for supervisors to monitor. For example, use shared workspace very close to home.

- for the jobs that cannot be easily redesigned, like working at a factory, a federal commuter excise tax need to be applied that is based on the actual commute used daily. Rather than systems that can fudge, OnStar and other wireless service can track the actual commute.

- for people and organizations that are in the habit of traveling long distances (for conferences, business meetings, etc.) these activities need to be subject to a steep excise tax to discourage it as much as possible.

- excise tax revenues collected from these programs can be used to fund programs to improve IT infrastructure, redesign work and play, and to generally reduce the need to move material long distances.

For shopping,

- a massive consolidation of retailing (that require lots of energy / fuel / etc.) and its replacement with online ordering for goods you see displayed at a "sales" center.

- a consolidated (maybe hub and spoke style) delivery system (rather than daily door to door) for non-rush goods that is delivered to the depot on a "window" of a few days.

- a revised shipment / delivery pricing structure that gives back consumers some of these savings vis-a-vis the need to pay for retailer margins.

These are just some basic ideas --- the beauty of bringing in IT and changing the nature of work is that it can deliver benefits almost immediately.

One day less of a commute a week is 20% of the fuel for commute saved.

Two days not having kids bussed to a central school will result in a smaller savings (they still need to go to a local satellite "school", but it helps.

Now, want to get real radical? Start studying how to convert existing "burbs" towns to golf cart communities, to reduce its energy needs, and then, rather than just bleet and complain, get the consensus needed, local laws passed, and implement.

Watching this site for a while, I see lots of people with good ideas, and very few people who seem to care or want to stop talking, debating, and just roll up their sleeves and get the job done.

The post peak oil petroleum output decline crisis is upon us... lets just mitigate it !